


Gratuitous Gala

by TheWitchBoy



Series: TimKon: Young Justice Universe [5]
Category: Teen Titans - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce and Clark Friendship, Developing Friendships, Drake Industries, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, Smalltown Kansas Boy Conner, Tim is Jewish, Wayne Enterprises, What do you even do at a gala?, medication mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 00:50:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12097110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWitchBoy/pseuds/TheWitchBoy
Summary: The hors d'oeuvres tasted like cardboard, the local piranhas (press) were out in force, and Tim wanted a poptart. In other news: red looked really good on Conner.





	Gratuitous Gala

**Author's Note:**

> I can't for the life of me remember what I wanted to write in the notes.
> 
> Um.
> 
> Hi?
> 
> Welcome to the series! I believe this can be read as a standalone (if you just assume preexisting friendship betweixt Tim and Conner), but this will make a lot more sense if you read previous portions of the series, since I occasionally forget to re-mention something I assume to be true/present (such as Conner's red shirt - apparently I never outright say it's red, in this, but now ya know!)
> 
> Warning: un-betaed. Feel free to point out mistakes, if you wish.
> 
> Edit: I just remembered what I wanted to say here! I actually researched what charity galas usually involve. I still have only about a 20% idea of what galas consist of, but I'm less clueless than I was before I binged some Google research.

The hors d'oeuvres were underwhelming, in every sense of the word.

Instead of being food, the hors d’oeuvres were little pieces of art, and they kind of tasted like paint on canvas, too. Usually, the food was Tim’s one solace. And, clearly, this event’s caterer needed to be fired. And replaced with a toaster.

Oh god, now Tim wanted a poptart.

And maybe some Xanax.

Yeah, okay, maybe not. Alprazolam (Xanax, to the less generic name savvy) wasn’t a fun one to go off of… which was what Tim had to do when the doctor realized that Tim’s anxiety wasn’t a short-term deal, which Tim could have told him, thanks. That was a fun one to tell Bruce: “I’m going off Xanax and on Prozac, so I’m probably not going to be able to Robin for the next week, thanks to the symptoms of going on the one and coming off the other. How was your day?”

Was there a point to that line of thought?

Er. Well.

He didn’t drop the Timothy Drake-Wayne smile, though, and he didn’t stop shaking hands or complimenting jewelry or otherwise making a fool of himself in the most publicly acceptable way known to man or Bat. He even complimented the hors d’oeuvres. But hey, what was the point of being able to lie to Batman if you couldn’t lie about food that tasted like cardboard and stale paste?

Or something like that.

It was a boring, uppity event for boring, uppity people. The press were thankfully few and far between. But few and far between didn’t mean “not dangerous.” Frankly, Tim’s brain was going to continue humming the Jaws theme until further notice. Because something always went wrong, and it might as well go wrong with suspenseful theme music as without it.

The theme music was justified when Vicky Vale called “Why, if it isn’t Tim Wayne!” from across the room.

Tim feigned deafness and ducked out of her line of vision.

It wasn’t “Tim Wayne,” anyway. No matter how often Ms. Vale misattributed the name to Tim.

“I thought your name was Tim Drake.”

Tim spun on his heel, just managing not to lash out in surprise. But not quite avoiding a bit of windmill. “Jesus,” Tim put a hand on his chest. Then proceeded to shake his head, trying not to look amused. The smile probably gave it away, small and shy though it was. “Conner, you startled me!” He frowned almost before he finished the statement, though. “Jesus? I’m Jewish.”

“You are?” Conner raised his eyebrows a bit.

“Oh. Well. Yeah,” Tim tilted his head.

They stood there in awkward silence for a moment.

“Cool,” Conner offered. Just to break the silence.

“Yeah. Menoras.” No, he didn’t need anyone to tell him how lame he sounded, right then. He was aware. “So. You said something about my name?”

“Oh! Yeah, uh. It’s Drake, isn’t it?” Conner adjusted his glasses.

Glasses.

Hold a heartthrob moment. Conner, in all his awkward Kansas country clone glory was wearing some hipster reject glasses with his suit. If Tim was Steph (weird thought; moving on), he probably would have taken a moment to dramatically fan himself. Steph would be all over that.

Tim would be lying if he didn’t admit he was a little “all over that,” himself, though. But not like that!

“Tim?”

“Oh, uh,” Tim tilted his head, birdlike. “Yeah. Drake. I helped set up the WE-Drake merger, facilitating as the on-site liaison between the two companies, and while my Father and Step-Mom are overseas, I generally head up any business they might, you know. Have with WE. The merger will be complete in a few months… what?”

Conner was nodding very slowly, face going carefully neutral.

Tim frowned.

“I’m… not actually press, you know,” he said. “Ignoring the press badge.” He tapped said badge, which was shoved horizontal, so that the hem of his jacket could hide it more efficiently. Tim hadn’t seen it. To his credit, though, Tim hadn’t put in his contacts before attending the gala and everything was just a bit fuzzy. Except Conner’s Kryptonian blue peepers. Which Tim used to describe them so that he didn’t have to resort to the infinitely more romanticized “orbs.”

Like blue fire.

“I know you’re not press,” Tim said, stiff.

Conner shrugged. “So you deal with Drake Industries’ affairs,” he said, giving in. “How does that make you Tim Wayne to the blond piranha hounding ‘Wing?” he pointed his chin over Tim. Tim didn’t need to look to know that Dick was probably chugging a glass of champagne or trying to flirt his way out of an interview. Or both. He multitasked like that, sometimes.

“Dick,” Tim said, offhand.

Conner looked taken aback. He opened and closed his mouth a few times.

With a snort, Tim shook his head. “No, I mean. Dick,” he nodded over his shoulder, though he still hadn’t turned to see exactly what Dick and Ms. Vale were up to. “Tall, black hair, blue eyes, needs a haircut? Last seen trying to move a waffle from a toaster to a plate without moving from his pre-caffeine slump? Spoiler, he doesn’t have telekinesis. Guess he gets to stay in Gotham.”

“Last seen trying to… so ‘Wing is…?”

“Dick. He lives up to it, sometimes,” Tim said.

“Dick.”

The stood there for a moment, quiet. “It doesn’t sound right, coming out of your mouth,” Tim said. And there was a much dirtier response to that than whatever Conner was going to say. “Dick Grayson, the golden boy.”

“Uh huh.”

There wasn’t a single way the conversation could get more awkward. “And you probably remember Jason.” Tim winced almost before the words were out of his mouth. Okay, so, Tim was a special kind of person. Special in that he could make anything more awkward, that is.

Conner tugged at his ear and glanced away. “I wasn’t very nice to him.”

“I doubt he was very nice to you. I met him a few times, you know? He was abrasive. Well-meaning, of course, but abrasive,” Tim shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. He wasn’t supposed to shove his hands in his jacket pockets while he was at the gala. He took his hands back out of his jacket pockets and let them hover around for a place to rest.

“I wish I’d been nicer,” Conner shrugged. He looked back, though not before Tim took notice of Conner’s ruby studs. He had the ridiculous urge to act like Stephanie, too, when he realized how well they matched Conner’s button-up. “Are you just trying to get out of telling me why the piranha called you Tim Wayne?”

Tim blinked at Conner for a few relatively silent seconds. Of course, the gala didn’t stop to observe his silence, so there was movement and sound all around him, but words. Words. He couldn’t quite figure out how to form them for a second. “Bruce,” he finally managed.

“I don’t follow,” Conner said.

Ironically, Conner seemed to vastly prefer following to leading. But that was irrelevant. “Uh, Dick and Jason. Bruce took them in.”

“How does that make you Tim Wayne?”

“She calls Dick “Rich Wayne,” and used to insist on calling Jason “Jay Wayne,” she just… spins her stories. Bruce took them in, they were his. Bruce took me under his wing,” Conner snorted a little, at the supposedly unintended pun. He really was quick. “So, in Ms. Vale’s opinion, I’m Bruce’s. A Wayne. Unfortunately for Ms. Vale’s readers, I’m still very much a Drake. I don’t live with Bruce, I live with my dad.” Not that his dad was home a lot.

Or at all.

“Rich.”

“For Richard.”

Conner gave a slow nod. “And he prefers to be called Dick?”

Tim cracked a smile. “I guess so.”

“I mean, to each their own, right?”

Tim shrugged. “I guess.” Tim subtly turned, keeping his back to the figure of Vicky Vale as she crossed the room. “So, uh, how’s the gala?”

Conner made a face, “No offense, but I think the amount of perfume in this room is suffocating me,” he said. “I stopped being able to tell the different scents apart twenty minutes ago.”

“That doesn’t answer the question?”

Conner nodded and shoved his hands in his pants pockets. Unlike on Tim, the hands-in-pockets look made Conner look more at ease in the setting, instead of just making him look less professional. “Yeah, I know. I guess it’s okay? Not really my scene.”

“Never would have guessed,” Tim lifted a hand to hide the snort that followed.

“Yeah, I mean, not my kind of music? Or food? Or people. Oh, god, the people… there was this one lady with the most chemical red hair and the stiffest smile and she just kind of,” Conner gave an awkward shrug, already laughing, “grabbed Clark’s ass as she passed us. Glad it wasn’t me, but Clark’s face was pretty great.”

Tim snorted again. If he just let himself laugh, he wouldn’t sound like a piglet. But it was what it was, right? He couldn’t look unprofessional, and a quiet snort was less noticeable that the laughter he really felt, bubbling up in his throat as it was. “I bet it was,” he said.

“There was this other lady, either young or overcompensating on Botox, who had this silver-gone-wrong shade of purple hair. She wouldn’t stop smiling at me over the rim of her glass. I don’t know how old she is, but I’d be willing to tell her I was six, if it meant she’d stop making eyes at me,” Conner went on, a bit eager.

Tim couldn’t figure out why he was so eager to tell his people-watching stories, but he snickered or snorted again, and Conner wet his lips, looking for another story.

Oh.

Or…

“There was someone sleeping in the coat check, when we first got here. I don’t think anyone’s really using the coat check, since it’s pretty warm out, but I gave the room a once-over – habits – and saw this kid who looked kind of like Wally used to, at the beginning. Red hair, freckles, everything he was wearing was probably two sizes too big. Green bowtie,” Conner said. “I didn’t think anything of it, except that it might be a sign of things to come, like, boring party or something? But the kid stirs and I guess he’s not really a kid, he’s just skinny, boyish face, and swimming in his clothes. He looks at me and he gets all confused. He’s all ‘Clark?’ and asks me what year it is.”

Tim laughed that time, maybe.

“Clark backtracks to look over my shoulder and there’s just this long moment of confused silence on three sides. I’m confused because I was just asked the year, this guy must be confused if he’s asking the year in the first place, and Clark probably didn’t expect to hear his name, you know?” Conner ran a hand through his hair. It only stood on end for a moment, but it was rather charming. “And then the guy in the coat check points at Clark and looks either betrayed or freaked out. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you had a kid,’ he said. And Clark is…” Conner wheezes as he tries to control his own laugh. “He’s just. I turned to look at him and he had the same look as he had on, last night, when you asked him if we were related. Anyway, it was Jimmy Olsen.”

Tim was already nodding. He knew who James Bartholomew Olsen was from his forays into the sub-folders on the Bat-Computer (so named by a much younger Dick Grayson).

“And I told him, Jimmy, that I was Clark’s son. Everything got really silent and awkward. Well, Clark was awkward, Jimmy was stunned, and I was riding on a high of amusement, so I told Jimmy that Clark was my dad, and let him assume the rest. I left afterward, but I heard Jimmy hiss a ‘when’ at Clark. It kind of makes me wish I’d eavesdropped on that conversation,” Conner shrugged.

Tim forced his laughs down with a hiccup. He could just see, in his mind’s eye, the look on Clark’s face. “Wasn’t Jimmy the person Mr. White expected Clark to take to the gala, with him?” Tim asked. “Photographer?”

“I guess,” Conner shrugged. “Looks like Perry sent him along to the gala on his own. Last-minute if the barrowed suit says anything.”

“I think all his suits look like that,” Tim said.

“You know him?”

“Uh, no, but I read up on…” Tim gestured languidly. “Everyone? When I’m bored, I read B’s dossiers. I know who’s related to who, down to coworkers and landlords, probably. I mean, I know who Dick’s landlord is. Fun fact, Dick owns his building, but his landlord – landlady – was the landlady there before Dick bought the building. I don’t think she even knows he owns it? I mean, he pays rent, still.”

Conner snorted. “I didn’t know he’d moved.” Not that Conner could have known where Dick had lived, before.

Tim plowed on, diverting back to the original topic. “And Jimmy’s constantly wearing oversized suits and stuff, from what I’ve seen. He clearly needs a tailor. Or someone to help him figure out what fits him before he buys it.”

“Maybe,” Conner agreed. He opened his mouth to say something else, but a slightly more mature version of his voice interrupted, from behind Tim.

“There you are, Conner.” Conner and Tim both glanced over Tim’s shoulder at Clark. “And. Tim.” Clark’s smile grew a little strained.

“Sup,” Tim deadpanned. It wasn’t very professional of him, no.

Clark gave an awkward little wave, even though he was standing barely two steps away. “Yeah, uh. Conner!” He turned back to the teenaged-bodied clone in question. “You disappeared on me, I was starting to wonder if you’d ditched me for the nearest pizza joint.”

Tim gave a woebegone sigh and turned back to Conner. “Pizza. I’d break B’s cardinal rule for pizza, right now.

Conner snorted. “Nah, I’m still here, Clark,” he said. “Just trying to pass some time.”

Tim pulled out his phone and tapped away at the maps app. “Does Pizza Hut deliver to galas?”

“I don’t think so,” Conner stepped closer to Tim, to look at the screen of his phone. “You’re serious about the pizza?”

Clark was giving off distraught-parent vibes.

“Yeah, maybe. It’s not like I’ve never ditched a gala… maybe I’ll go over there. I’ll be back before I have to stand next to Bruce and look pretty while he gives his little speech thing, before the charity auction. No one will ever know I was gone,” Tim glanced up at Conner. They were standing very close, now.

Clark’s distraught-parent vibes intensified.

“You know,” Tim grinned, “Unless paparazzi catch me dining out. You could come with?”

“Wait, go back to the charity auction. I actually have no idea what you do at galas,” Conner said.

“Well,” Tim straightened his tie and put his phone away. “First, of course, you arrive. In Gotham, we usually do about half an hour of hors d’oeuvres and socializing. Then there’s a dinner, usually catered by a subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises, but today catered by Stagg Industries, to make up for some recent bad press that put a sizeable dent in Stagg stocks, particularly his cruise lines. After dinner come the speeches, then the auction. Sometimes, they do bachelor auctions, but today is going to be a bit dull, with a silent auction of donated jewelry.”

“Uh-huh,” Conner nodded slowly.

“Donated from personal collections and various charitable companies, such as WE. I believe my father donated one of my mother’s necklaces, come to think of it. A pink diamond cascading affair of pink and white diamonds, worth about a quarter million. She never wore it out and it was gathering dust in a lock box,” Tim mused.

Conner just blinked at Tim a few times. “I don’t think I’ll be bidding on that,” he said.

“Bruce usually bids the worth of each item, from the beginning, so that nothing is undersold and the charity auction can rake in well-deserved funds for the supported charities. Oh! And dancing, between socializing and dinner, and then between dessert and the speakers, as well as after the auction.”

Conner nodded.

Tim glanced over his shoulder to see Clark edging away, looking about as distraught as Tim thought he would be. “Well,” Tim turned back to Conner. “I’m still thinking pizza. You with?”

“Yeah, sure,” Conner shrugged.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't begin to tell you how much I ship SuperBat. I'm actually highkey surprised I haven't already insinuated a relationship? I might not (in this series), but I figured it was worth mentioning, here.
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Up next: Probably Pizza (I actually have no idea what I'll write next, but that IS an option, so...)


End file.
